Infection Blooming
by Dancingonthegreen
Summary: Early 2014, Sheva Alomar of the BSAA West Africa Branch is sent to Uganda to uncover the monster killing villagers of a small town. What she finds leaves her caught in a storm with no access to the outside world, and her only ally is a mysterious member of the East Africa Branch. They are about to become pawns in a game brought by the desiccated remains of the Umbrella Corporation.
1. Old Memories

Chapter One: Old Memories

"At oh seven hundred hours, I have made contact with East Africa Branch operative Kin Jin-ho," speaking into her earpiece, Operative Sheva Alomar expected no answer, but still felt disappointed that she was alone. Kin Jin-ho had been brisk, shaking her hand and giving his name before turning from the helicopter that had just dropped Sheva off in the middle of the plains. Long grass, uncut but by weather and the mouths of animals, swept at her feet.

It might rain, the clouds blooming in the sky said. When, however, she couldn't say.

"Agent Alomar," Jin-ho turned back to her, "we need to get going. This will be worse for both of us if the weather declines." He did not sound African, did not look it. His English was good, but laced with a Korean accent, and Sheva wondered how he had made it to be stationed in East Africa. He turned back away from the helicopter as it lifted, tossing the grass around it in a fury of wind and disappeared beyond the sprigs of trees.

Jin-ho's transportation was a jeep, similar to those used by park rangers to check on lions and traverse wildlife preserves. From the air rifle in the back seat, Sheva suspected it might be just that. When she reached it, Jin-ho was already seated, starting up the motor and giving little pause as Sheva slipped in beside him. He had a pair of dark glasses hanging from his vest, a black tactical vest used in military operations, but with heavy modifications making it sleek without compromising the dozen pockets surrounding it. Under, he wore a tee shirt, tight to his body and showing his panther-like build. Compared to Sheva's tank top and khaki's tucked into a pair of combat boots, this man was uptight. Too much military breeding into him, she assumed.

"So what are we dealing with?" Sheva asked, leaning towards him and raising her voice over the engine. "I was told to come out for the operation, but nothing else. The BSAA really needs to give more info." When Jin-ho spoke, she had to strain to hear.

"Residents of a local town just a couple miles south of Masaka report monster sightings in the night. These reports have increased in the past week. Nothing new, with how superstitions rise in the poorer regions, but yesterday morning, a woman and child were discovered torn to pieces, like an animal had gotten at them. Nothing of that caliber resides in these areas. Or anywhere, as far as I know. Both were mutilated and chewed on, but no evidence exists on a lion or other big cat. In fact, the claw marks don't match anything seen running rampant in an urban zone in Africa, period. "

"Does the BSAA think it could be a B.O.W. doing this?" Sheva asked, touching the pistol at her hip.

"It seems that way," Jin-ho nodded. "It's why I convinced my captain to ask for you to be transferred here for the mission. You have experience with this sort of thing, from what I hear. Nobody else in the East Africa branch has dealt with a B.O.W. besides myself. None who lived, anyway." Sheva nodded, thinking. "The possibility of a B.O.W. is far too high for comfort. There was an old Umbrella factory here before it burned down in the 80's. There may be a link, but as far as the local authorities are concerned, it was just a water purifying plant."

They drove in silence for a minute. "Here," Jin-ho opened the Jeep console to pull out a folder. "What's your opinion on this?" Sheva took the folder and opened it. It contained multiple papers, covered in both printed text and bad handwriting, as well as glossy polaroid photographs sorted together by a fat paperclip. She checked the pictures first, sorting them out. They were gruesome, some slightly blurred by the shaky hand of an unnerved photographer. Amidst a blur of carnage was a figure, another figure, sorted in different angles in each photo. The woman was hard to look at. Huge bite marks marred her body, rends in her flesh and clothes exposed grit, muscle, bone, organ. The little girl was even worse. Whatever had done this may not have been more violent towards her, but her small frame was even less equipped to handle the monsters mouth and claws than her mother. The surroundings were dirty, a pathetic hut that reminded Sheva too much of her own childhood. These were poor people, probably on the outskirts of town.

Dropping everything back into the folder, she let it fall to her feet, knocking against her shoes and not quite spilling into the jeep's floor. "Not human," she determined instantly, "and I've never seen an animal tear somebody up that badly. If it is a B.O.W. we're dealing with here, we need to find out where it came from."

"True," Jin-ho said, "and several people in the East Africa branch are already looking into it, but this is Africa, and not many people are too trusting of the BSAA in these parts. Or any outside sources for that matter. We'll be in the town in just a couple of minutes."

Wait, pull over!" Sheva's voice came out loud and hurried, less in control than she had intended, when she saw something in the grass. Movement, and not quite proper for the plains of Uganda. "What is that?" Jin-ho stopped suddenly, and Sheva slammed her hand on the dashboard to keep her head from striking it.

"Let's find out, shall we?" The Korean was quick to jump out of the jeep, hand falling to his holster. Circling the jeep, his eyes followed the spot that Sheva had noticed. There was nothing moving now, nothing but a breeze in the air, picking up the scent that they both knew too well. It was metallic, strong. Under that, the more obvious odor of…

"A body," Sheva whispered and drew her handgun as she leapt out of the jeep, jogging with gun prepared but not raised. Jin-ho was right behind her, matching her pace for pace. Splashes of red stood against the grass, specks here and there becoming more apparent the closer they came to the spot. The smell was fresh, the intestinal scent in the air, but not decomposed.

It was bad. Whatever had done this was gone now, and quickly. The body wasn't human, and Sheva thanked the heavens for that, but the gazelle's neck was snapped, turned in more than 200 degrees, and the throat slit. The body was butchered, claw marks resembling the pictures.

"It was here, just now," Jin-ho remarked. He slid his handgun from its holster and backed away. "We should get going. Report to the authorities."

"But.." Sheva inhaled from her mouth. "It was just here, like you said. It can't be far, no matter how fast it moves. We should…"

"Report to the authorities, Alomar. I told you, the locals aren't fond of outsiders. We have to show them our bellies once in a while, let them think they're in control. Sheva relented, and felt the whole while that the jeep was being followed. She studied the back seat, constantly looking back to the road, and noticed the green case of shells beside the air rifle. She opened the lid, touched at the feathery tops of what appeared to be tranquilizer darts, and Jin-ho closed the lid quickly, almost catching her fingers, and latched it shut.

Nothing appeared on the dirty road behind them.


	2. First Drops

The town was little more than the emaciated remnants of a society that may have once flourished, scraps from the rest of society laid bare by the sun.

"Welcome to Huraja," Jin-ho raised one hand to the sky. "A desolate place left hollow by Umbrella, like so many places in the world." He pulled over to the side of the road, accumulating a puff of dust that clung to the wind shield. The town was sparse, mostly built of tin walls and roofs, plywood and rusted nails. The poverty soaked mess seemed to go on for an eternity, despite how small Huraja truly was. To the left of the jeep sat a rickety stand, perhaps for selling fruit or vegetables, though Sheva had seen no farms outlying the area. She got out of her seat, looking around. The road was dirt, often trampled flat, but by whom?

"The place looks deserted," she commented. "Where is everybody?"

"I couldn't say," Jin-ho cocked his head, scratched the back of his neck. "The town is small, but not so small that a town just disappears overnight. Let's go." He motioned for her, started walking down the road, which eventually split in a fork, both as empty as the others.

"So….now what?" Sheva looked around. There was nothing at all. No signs of life. A ghost town. Jin-ho looked confused.

"This isn't right," he muttered. "Impossible. No signs of any activity. How is that possible? I don't like this."

"We need to know what's going on," Sheva said. "And report to HQ."

"Obviously," Jin-ho cocked an eye and looked at her. "Perhaps we should split up, radio each other if we find anything?" When Sheva didn't immediately answer, he went on. "Of course, if you'd rather stay together…"

"No." Sheva shook her head. "We can split up. Like you said, we can radio each other if we find anything. Anything."

"Fine. Meet me back here in ten minutes, whether you find anything or not," Jin-ho's voice was no less brisk, almost bossy, and he tapped a finger to his eyebrow in a weak salute before heading down the left road, not saying anything or allowing a discussion on their directions. Sheva forced herself to swallow a moment of distaste for the man.

Definitely too much military in his background.

Continuing on her path, Sheva kept a tight hold on her Beretta. It was select, being ambidextrous in design to allow her left handed grip, and she had recently added a light fixture to the bottom of the barrel. Besides minor modifications to the grip, it was otherwise a standard military grade handgun.

Alone now, the town seemed even more poverty ridden than it had while coming in. On her right, the houses suddenly stopped beside the road, replaced by a rusted fence made of chicken wire. The township crawled on behind it, but only after fifteen meters or so, and the fence kept up for twice that long beside the road, strung up to cheap metal posts, half so defeated by rust that they didn't even hold themselves up, merely leaned against the wire, hanging as though by a net.

The breeze was light, and yet as enough for the buildings to creak, for the fencing to hand while rust puffed up from the metal. Jin-ho had said that the call had come in yesterday, and yet it seemed like this place had been abandoned for weeks. Flexing her fingers on her handgun, Sheva took in a breath and kept going. The air smelled… foul, somehow. Wrong.

The road ended quickly, the dirt path cut off and gave way to a line of barrels, wedged up next to one another like a stopping point, though one barrel had fallen over. They were black and smelled of oil, charred from use. A heat and light source at night, maybe? She peered over, looked inside one of the barrels, noticed broken wood and ash. And something else. She leaned closer, reached one hand it to push around at the old debris with a finger, jumped back at what she saw.

"What the hell?" She came close again. Yes, it was a femur. A human femur. And around it, teeth, broken, charred, cracked. Even more soot sat beneath that, and she kicked over the can, watched its contents spill out onto the ground. Several small bones, phalanges, scattered into the dirt, bits of vertebrae, and most shockingly, a skull. The skull landed on the back of its base, black, hollow eye sockets staring back at her. Part of the nasal bone was broken off, giving another blaring hole in the midst of ash smeared bone.

Sheva was quick to tap her ear piece. The radio turned to static for a second. "Kin Jin-ho!" She kept her voice firm. "This is Sheva. I've found human remains in a barrel. They've been burned. It's nothing but bone." She did a quick look over at the other barrels. "It seems several of these barrels have the same thing."

Crackling. "All right, keep looking, I haven't found…" Static blasted. "Shit. Back to the jeep, now!"

"What is it?" Sheva turned back to the road.

"Just run!" Two loud blasts rose into the air, from a higher caliber handgun. Sheva ran, arms moving with her momentum, Beretta tight in her left hand, boots slamming into the ground, producing clouds of dust. Movement in the corner of her eye almost stopped her, but she refused to look, heading straight for her target. There was the fork in the road, and beyond that was the jeep. Passing the fork, she heard footsteps matching hers, maybe a bit farther in their spacing. Turning, she saw Jin-ho running, firearm in hand. "Go Alomar!" He shouted.

Both reached the jeep at around the same time, hands slamming into its hood. Sheva turned to look back, and raised her gun as she saw what was coming for them. "Oh, shit!" Her mouth dropped, and she fired twice. The rain finally started, and hell escaped its chains.


	3. Inklings

Chapter Three: Inklings

The thing opened its mouth and screamed as Sheva's bullets struck its hide. It was short, squat, with long, gangly arms that would drag the ground if it didn't hold them up, hands set into permanent claws, long nails flecked with red. Its yellow eyes shone in the starting rain, dark green hide, scaled like a reptile's, starting to speckle and glint before the clouds completely consumed the sun. The mouth, though, was the most frightening. Rows of teeth, too white for something so foul, lined a blood red mouth, tongue pointed and fat.

The monster reared its head back, shrieked again. Its voice was a high pitched squeal, stretching out for several moments. Then it focused its vision, charging towards the two, running and swinging each arm back and forth as it did. The two agents started firing, emptying their clips into the beast, and it fell back, blaring out and lashing its limbs in a futile effort to stand, then went limp. Sheva automatically dropped the clip from her Beretta and replaced it, running the slide as soon as the new clip hit home.

"What…..was that?" She shook her head. She had seen a lot of things, and this could, and would, be counted as one of them. "Is that our B.O.W.?" Jin-ho cocked his head.

"I would say so, Alomar," he started for the dead monster, gun trained on it. The gun itself was an old Sig Pro 2340, barrel adjusted to fire Sig. 357 rounds. So much stopping power and it had not easily taken down this beast. "It's like the one I took out so long ago."

"The one that nobody else walked away from?" Sheva asked, coming towards the downed creature.

"That was it, a Hunter." Hin-ho nodded his head. "They are hard to kill to say the least. If I'd known it was this, I'd have brought a lot more than this," he waved his Sig in the air. "But if that's it…"

"Then where is the rest of the town?" Everything was curious, and questions abounded. And now it was raining, making Sheva miserable at best. Her hair was starting to stick to her forehead, and mud clinging to her boots. "And where did this come from?"

"I don't know. Way back when, the local police assumed that it was from Veltro, maybe something they let loose to test, or something of the sort. It was just after the Terragrigia attack, after all. This time," he shrugged, "I could not pretend to guess." He holstered his sidearm, rubbed his hands together. "Let's look around a bit, shall we?" He looked at the dead B.O.W. again. "Together, this time."

"It doesn't look like we'll have much choice," Sheva said, looking behind the jeep's rear, and Jin-ho followed her gaze, and raised his gun in the direction with a start, taking a couple of steps back. Two more of the B.O.W.s stood in their stooping manner, reminiscent of reptilian gorillas, claws dragging into the ground. Sheva held her Beretta up, lining her sights with one of the monsters' heads.

"Run?" She asked, risking a glimpse at her partner.

"Run!" He agreed and turned away, charging back down the road. Sheva followed, turned back to shoot at the creatures as they came running after them, long arms held up ridiculously and swinging back and forth. The light rain splattered against her sights, cutting off their bright white dots and distorting them, and she fired blind, striking one hunter in the shoulder. It didn't even flinch as it ran. She fired twice more, and lost it. The Hunter was gone from its spot.

And Sheva fell, face slamming into the ground, shoulders pinched hard by something landing on her back and head buzzing by the B.O.W. screeching in its high pitched voice. This is it, Sheva hated to think it, heart threatening to tear out of her chest. Soon, the Hunter would do so literally. A loud crack and the beast tumbled off her back, hissing in the dirt, waving its legs, and Jin-ho pulled her up by the shoulder. She ignored the bloody stinging in her back and ran again, hair sticking to her forehead and this time she didn't dare turn back. Feet hitting the dirt hard, she listened hard for the B.O.W.s behind, screeching again and again.

At the fork in the road, both turned without a word the way Jin-ho had originally gone, passing rickety buildings sagging with rust. The sound of metal ripping burst through the air, and beside her Sheva saw a hovel collapse under the weight of one of the jumping Hunters, and a green flash in front of her showing the other landing before her, forcing her to dig her heels into the dirt to keep from crashing into it.

Jin-ho didn't stop, only drew his arm back as he put his left fist into the side of the Hunter's face. It fell to its side and before it could hop back to its face, he was firing into its face, breaking the bone and scale into a glob of mush. It didn't move anymore, but the other Hunter emerged from the rubble that was once a structure, baring its teeth and shaking rust off its flanks. Sheva put two shots into its chest, forcing the thing back a bit, and the monster hopped, coming too close to her for comfort. Jin-ho started firing at it, slow shots aimed deliberately, the second causing a snap in its shoulder, and the arm went limp, twisted backwards.

Hissing, the Hunter bared its free arm and glared and Jin-ho. Sheva took the chance aimed, blasted out its eye, and it fell with a final shriek, cupping the socket that once held a yellow orb and now was a mess of slime and ooze. Then the hand fell away from the eye and stayed limp.

"That was too close," Sheva took several slow breaths. "It seems like we have more than a stray on our hands."

"More like a pack," Jin-ho agreed. "But how many more are there, I wonder. This is worse than reported."

"Speaking of which, where is everybody? This place looks like it's been deserted for a while." She looked around, turning in a slow three sixty degrees, looking at the old hovels. "Wait a minute…" She turned back, walked towards a building wall. The building was trashed wood, unkempt and caked with dirt. She ran her hand over it, uncovered a black stain, caked in jagged lines. Holstering her handgun, she wiped more and more of the dirt away with both hands. She was almost finished but for small dustings of the dirt, the dark letters emerged into readable view.

We are abandoned.

Sheva used her nail to peel at one of the letters, cocked her head and stared at the flakes for a moment. That was it. The blackness was…blood. Old blood, coagulated and darkened by age and dirt.

"How long has this been going on?" She didn't realize she was thinking aloud at first, but Jin-ho heard.

"And who sent the call to the BSAA yesterday? And the pictures?"

Sheva hated to think of what was really going on. "Somebody wanted the BSAA here." The rain drowned away the crusted blood on her hand, dripping into the ground and it was lost forever.


End file.
